Keep Living
by The Fuzy Llama
Summary: What if due to a slight change in perception, Tohru's mother didn't die the day of the automobile accident? Just a little "what if" ficlet for those of you out there who died a little inside every time you saw Tohru holding a conversation with a photograph.


Keep Living

Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket or any of its characters. No profits were made in the production of this fanfiction.

Dedicated to Matt for inadvertently helping me with future plot developments. And for being awesome, of course. ;)

P.S. Brace yourself. I change P.O.V. several times in this short chapter. I tried to make it clear, but I'm not sure that I pulled it off successfully. Consider yourself warned. ;)

* * *

It was just another ordinary morning. Cars were honking. The city sidewalks were congested with people walking either to work or to school. Kyou, dressed in the uniform of his all boys high school, was waiting near the curb at an intersection for the light to change. Just an ordinary day. As usual, he was putting his martial arts skills to use, staying aware of his surroundings. At the crowded intersection he may have been the only one to see it with enough time to react. Kyou saw the car speeding toward him just as he saw the orange haired woman who was stepping onto the crosswalk. Her face was turned away. Whoever she was, she wouldn't see the oncoming car. He realized that this woman in front of him was going to die. If he pulled her to him, she would transform him. In a split second reaction, he grabbed her arm and slung her to the side, away from his chest and from the oncoming car.

What the small crowd waiting at the intersection saw was a high school age boy with unnaturally bright, orange hair grabbing a woman and violently throwing her to the ground. A car screeched by, honking its horn. A middle aged lady started in on him, loudly reprimanding him in defense of the woman. Several people in the crowd walked away, preferring to find another intersection rather than be involved in whatever was going on.

* * *

As Kyoko was swung to the pavement she saw it, just before cheek-planting, the car that sped through the red light and would have run her over where she had been standing. The collision scraped her cheek, but the main impact was to the side of her forehead, scratching off pieces of skin. It had been a long time since her old gangster days when she had conditioned herself to not feel pain. She was out of practice. For a few half seconds, the pain was all she felt as the shockwaves of her head impacting the concrete blasted through her skull. Then, amidst terrible yelling and hollering she opened her eyes. Road again. She smelled the skid marks before she saw them. The car had tried to swerve, but it was clear from how close the skid marks were to the sidewalk that it would not have swerved in time.

Someone was yelling. The person who was yelling was right in front of her, pulling on her arms. An older woman. Years of conditioning in her childhood said the yelling was at her, and she unconsciously unfocused her eyes and looked to the side, away from the person yelling, an old, ingrained habit. She felt a little of the old, self righteous anger bubbling under the surface, egged on by the acrid sting of the wounds, wanting to say things like, "What's your problem?! I didn't do anything! Who the hell do you think you are?!" She recognized that anger for what it was, an old feeling that didn't govern her anymore. She let it fill her up inside for a moment like a helium balloon, and then she let it go. Instead she focused on the torrent of words that were washing over her. She was being yelled at... for being a delinquent? Why...? She hadn't been a delinquent for a long time now. The woman was kneeling in front of her, pulling her up from the concrete and yelling. Not at her. To the side. The person standing next to the woman had long legs. That was who the woman was yelling at. Kyoko's eyes followed his body up to a flash of orange hair and a pair of horrified, red eyes. "Carrot Top?" It probably didn't help that she could feel her face bleeding. She felt a burning sensation as the cuts on her face stretched and she smiled at him.

* * *

Everything had happened so fast. He hadn't transformed, Kyou noted absently. That was good at least. He had managed to get the woman out of the way without making chest contact. The roar of the car horn was still echoing in his ears, freezing his blood to sluggishness, and his limbs felt heavy, like they weren't his anymore. Some loud, ugly woman was yelling at him. She had succeeded in pulling the orange haired lady to a sitting position. The cuts and scrapes looked really bad. She was really bloodied up. It looked about like someone had taken a razor encrusted baseball bat to her arm and the side of her face. He had caused that. There was blood dripping down her face and a little bit dripping down her arm. His memory began to revert against his will to the last time he had seen his mother. He had been the one who found her in the bathroom. There was blood everywhere. There was blood dripping down her arm. There was blood dripping down her arm. White skin becomes red and drips drop onto white linoleum. This was his fault. He had jumped too fast. The car would have swerved out of the way. He had thrown her on the ground, too afraid to catch her in his arms and risk transforming, and now she was cut up and bleeding. For a moment she was more than just bleeding. He imagined she was dead and she had empty eyes in her eye sockets, and she was his mother, lying in a tub of blood, and he had killed her. She was dead and it was because he wasn't strong enough or smart enough or fast enough. Whatever he was, it wasn't enough. He had killed her all over again. His fault. His fault.

But then she turned. She was looking at him now. It wasn't his mother anymore. She was the woman with the long orange hair in his childhood, the one who had been kind to him. When he recognized who she was, he found himself paralyzed, just frozen in shock. He had never thought he would see her again. It was a good thing he hadn't recognized her before he grabbed her arm because he might have failed to react and let her die. Her now short hair was matted into the cuts. She looked at him like she couldn't quite place him. Then recognition bloomed in her eyes. "Carrot Top," she said, her bloodied lips and eyes forming a warm smile. He wanted to run, just bolt down the street, but his feet were frozen in place, just like when he first meet her. Her smile broadened. "You just saved my life, you know." The look in her eyes was jovial and conspiratorial, like a joke shared just between the two of them. When she said it, he realized she was right.

* * *

The woman stopped yelling. The punk hadn't yelled back or become violent. There are only so many things you can say a person "oughta be ashamed of" before you run out of steam. His horror seemed to be genuine, like he had seen a ghost. Had she misjudged? The red haired woman seemed to know him. It wasn't her business, and the woman seemed alright, other than the cuts. She looked at the woman and said, "If everything is alright, I'll just be leaving, then."

Kyoko looked at her for a moment and nodded. She probably had meant well. "Thank you. I'm fine," she murmured. The woman left. Kyoko held her hand out to Kyou. He looked at it for a moment as if he didn't know what to do with it, then held it and helped her up.

* * *

Note to readers : If someone experiences a severe head injury, do not move them unless absolutely necessary. Wait for help to arrive. (So they say, anyway. Whoever "they" are. Presumably medical practitioners.) Also, I have heard, though not experienced for myself, that red lights are actually pink lights in Japan. I went with red so that an English speaking reader would better understand from their own cultural perspective and to not detract from the flow of the story.

If anyone wants me to write a second chapter, I will work on it! I have a general plot drawn out and a fair number of paragraphs already written. As for after chapter 2… Obviously Kyoko being alive would affect the plot of Fruits Basket in major ways! Among those, Kyoko will push Kyou into meeting Tohru several months ahead of canon, and Tohru will never live in a tent on Sohma property. (poor Yuki!) I also have about nine other stories simmering in my cauldron, so if you want me to make this story a priority and/or a longer story, let me know!

11.06.2015

Edit 1: 12.31.15


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